Cutting edge arts and production company

Performance

Biog

Jolie Booth began training in the performing arts as a dancer from ages of 5 to 11yrs and then as an actor from 11 to 16yrs at local youth groups. She began working at an award winning Tudor Re-enactment called Kentwell Hall aged 10yrs old and spent a week each summer living as a travelling troubadour in a mummers troupe called the Suffolk Howlers, who are still performing together 26 years later, making them somewhat specialists in their field (no pun intended).

Studied theatre throughout GCSE's & A'Levels, completing A'Level Theatre Studies at Colchester Sixth Form College in 1996, then in 2001 completed a degree in English at Nottingham Trent University. Directed Equus and Alice Through the Looking Glass as part of the Nottingham Trent Drama Society.

Set up and edited Flow Magazinein 2002 - a radical feminist webzine, one of the first of its kind, which became national news when Julie Burchill wrote about it in her column for the Guardian and then subsequently for Flow Magazine itself.

Between 2003 and 2004 moved to a large squat in Berlin and was part of Piratinnen Puppeteentheatre company. They travelled around squat bars presenting videos and puppetry performances on the theme of piracy.

In 2008 began working with the world famous fool Jonathan Kay as his producer and also trained and performed with him. Together they created the Nomadic Academy for Fools. After a few years the graduates from the academy, Jolie included, began touring professional work under the company name Theatre of Now.

Her first novel The Girl Who'll Rule the World was published by the Kings England Pressin 2016.

Practice

"I create safe spaces within which audiences can relax, open up and explore. My work is extra-live, which means that the usual rules of theatre etiquette do not apply and therefore anything can happen.

In the background to my practice I'm interested in the history of performance, from our earliest forefather's attempts at explaining how they'd survived death by performing elaborate ceremonies, to the power of show business today. I'm exploring how theatre can be used as an act of subversion, healing and discussion. I'm continually delighting in its inherent magic, the act of creation being the most magical act of all.

But the forefront of my practice comes with a mainstream face. I work with cutting edge mediums, performance artists, designers and producers so that the interface with the audience is edgy and enticing.

I'm interested in how theatre can be used as a tool for change. Theatre allows for a safe and sacred space within which issues can be discussed without fear of retribution. But to get people there in the first place the work needs to be accessible and inclusive. It needs to look like fun. The face of my practice has taken many guises, but behind the mask, my practice is always about working with the audience to challenge and crack open our preconceptions (especially my own).